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Known by God

1/29/2018

Psalm 139:1-4 Ps 18:19 Ps 19:14 O Lord, You have searched me and You know me. You know when I sit and when I rise, You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue You know it completely, O Lord. He brought me into a spacious place; He rescued me because He delights in me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Sometimes in our daily busyness, we forget just how much the Lord is involved in our lives and our thoughts and our ways. As the psalmist said, God is aware of all we do and don't do. He is aware of all we say and think. He desires to be invited into our daily routine. He desires to have us seek His guidance in all our decisions.

Abba Father is aware of our tears, our joys and our frustrations. He isn't surprised at the choices we make. He isn't shocked at our anger and fears. He desires that we would be open with Him and really let Him in on all our emotions.

There is no emotion that Jesus did not experience. He had to deal with poverty, death of loved ones, diseases in the world. Jesus felt the contempt of the religious leaders. He felt the deep love of His disciples and followers. He felt the betrayal of one of His closest friends. He also felt the rejection when many of the crowds walked away from Him because it became too hard to follow Him.

If we could learn to live our lives with the memory that Jesus lives in us as we live in Him, it would change the way we live. We would remember that all we have is a gift from the Creator. It would make some of those hard decisions easier. We could learn to have ongoing conversations with our Savior. We could live more in the Spirit and less in the flesh. (Romans 8:1) We would not let the enemy try to make us live under condemnation. We could live in victory.

We are known in every aspect of our lives. We have a Savior Who delights in us and wants us to dwell in the shadow of the Most high. We are loved.

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Abba Father

1/22/2018

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Romans 8:15-16 For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of son-ship. And by Him we cry, "Abba, Father."

Galatians 4:6 Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, the Spirit Who calls out, "Abba, Father."

The meaning of 'Abba' is equivalent to 'daddy'. It denotes a close relationship between a child and the father. It denotes a level of trust and affection between two people built of time tested trials and shared history.

I remember when my sons were little, many, many years ago. When their father got home from work, they would run to meet him with arms wide and utter joy on their faces. They would shout, "Daddy" at the top of their lungs. They would tell him all about their day, usually at the same time. They felt confident that their daddy wanted to hear all about their adventures. They had an assurance of knowing they would be greeted and loved by their father.

Our heavenly Father wants the same type of relationship with us. He wants to hear us say, "Good morning, Abba." He wants us to run to Him with our arms and hearts wide open. He would love to hear us say, "Daddy!!" with equal joy and exuberance that our children do.

When the prodigal son returned home, the father ran to greet him with love and acceptance and forgiveness. Our Abba Father does the same thing for us. When we return after wandering away or making mistakes or deliberately sinning, God receives us with joy. While He doesn't want us to treat Him with disrespect or irreverence, He does want us to feel comfortable and willing to tell Him all about our day. He wants to hear all about our dreams and hopes and joys just as much as He desires to hear our confessions and repentance.

Our God is a God of balance. The universe is perfectly balanced so that the planets and stars and suns will stay in place. Our relationship with our heavenly Father is the same. It was initially created to be a perfect balance of love and respect and reverence. When Adam chose to listen to Satan, that balance was disrupted. But we have the opportunity and right as children of the Most High to restore that balance in our relationship

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Believing without seeing.

1/15/2018

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John 1:50 You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that.

John 21:29 Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.

The world believes because of what their five senses tell them. They rely on the sight, sound, feel, taste and smell to assess the world around them. We are told, 'seeing is believing'. Yet we, as Christians, are told to believe without seeing. We cannot see what gives us life, both physical and eternal.

We cannot see the oxygen that keeps us alive. We can't see the dresser in the dark and yet our toes inevitably find it. We can't see the spiritual battles that are ongoing as the forces of evil and the armies of the Living God battle over our souls. Without a microscope, we can't see the cancer cells or the viruses that can devastate our bodies.

Jesus's disciples asked if they could see God. Jesus told them if they saw Him, they have seen the Father. Jesus became frustrated because they were so slow to believe in what they could not see. He spent three years trying to help them understand that the kingdom that He was preaching was a spiritual kingdom, not an earthly one. His kingdom is eternal. The one they were looking for was temporal.

John 20:30 tells us that many miracles were done that were not recorded. We can choose to believe in things we are told but don't see. We can believe the Word of God. We can choose to believe that the Creator cannot lie or we can pick and choose what we want to believe.

Our salvation is by faith alone. We were not there when Jesus chose to endure the cross but we, as Christians choose to believe it. We didn't see Him risen, nor did we see Him ascend into Heaven but the very foundation of our faith stands on those beliefs.

Psalms 3:5 tells us to "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding." We are also told that His ways are far above our ways. We may not understand His ways, but we can put our faith in what we can't see or feel. We can trust in God's love.

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The God of Do Overs

1/2/2018

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Philippians 3:13b-14 But one thing I do. Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Recently while reading Hebrews 11, called the Heroes of the Faith chapter, I noticed that most of the 'heroes' were people that had a history of failure, sometimes in a big way. Many could be called 'failures' in being the person God wanted them to be. And yet, all of these were given a second chance to overcome their weaknesses and shine for the Lord.

James didn't believe his brother could be the Son of God. He even took his mother to try to convince Jesus to return home. He felt Jesus was crazy or deluded. Jesus made a special effort to go to him after His resurrection. James faced his brother and received Him as Lord and Savior. James became known as 'camel knees' because he spent so much time praying to and communing with his brother. He became one of the great leaders of the early church.

Peter's story is well known. He denied the Lord. He rebuked the Lord for telling what would happen in the future. Like many of us, he didn't want to hear bad news. Yet after it all, Peter was willing to die for the Lord. He believed gaining eternal life was worth the cost of spreading the gospel.

So many of us have made mistakes, big and small. Yet none of the mistakes we have made can take us away from the loving forgiveness and compassion of Jesus. The only thing that can separate us from Jesus is our own choice to walk away. He stands waiting for us to return. If Paul, who killed the early Christians can be used to evangelize the world, we can be used to serve in whatever way the Lord sees fit to use us.

I have heard so many say that the Lord can't forgive whatever sin they committed. They are either making the Lord very small or they are overestimating the importance of their sin. Keep the Lord and His forgiveness in perspective. His ways are so much higher than ours.

Press on toward the heavenly goal. Accept His forgiveness and strive to serve Him with all your heart and mind and strength. Learn from the past, don't live in it. You will miss so much of what God has for you in the here and now.

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Known by God

Abba Father

Believing without seeing.

The God of Do Overs

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